Day Fourteen - March 14th, 2012

It was my Via Dolorosa day. Here I placed my bible on the actual Paving stones that Jesus would have carried his cross on. The city has been built up over the road now but it can be seen in the lower area of the Sisters of Sion convent.

The bible is open to John 19. The passage tells about the sentencing of Jesus and His Crucifixion.

This is stop One on the Via Dolorosa. This church is called chrurch of the Flagellation - Where Jesus was beaten and whipped before being taken to be crucified. Look closely at the ceiling - you will see the crown of thorns.

Here the bible is placed on a pavement stone where soldiers would play games to entertain themselves while humiliating and hurting their prisoners. You can see there game carved into the stone - note the square within and square and some diagonal lines.

At the foot of the place that once bore the Antonia fortress, the pool (now a cistern) is located at the northwestern corner of Jerusalem's Temple Mount and measures 52 by 14 metres. Once open-aired, the pool was accessible along both long walls by a series of rock-cut steps covered by water-proof mortar composed of chalk and ashes.

The pool was apparently built by Herod The Great during his construction of the Antonia and the renovation of the Temple Mount in the late 1st century BCE

The Pool is also accessible by a rock-cut passage that leads south for 34 meters before reaching the western wall of the Temple Mount enclosure. Blocked by the Herodian construction, this was an earlier aqueduct that once fed one of the cisterns underneath the Temple Mount enclosure itself.

This is the famed Catholic Basilica, The Church of the Holy Sepulcher. This is the final stop of the Via Dolorosa and represent the last five Stations of the Cross. The next five pictures were taken there today. Though the exterior is not very impressive the interior could be explored and appreciated for hours.

This is proposed to the place where the cross of Jesus stood

On the other side is the chapel of the Angel and of this side you see the tomb of Jesus.

In the largest gathering chapel in the basilica there is a beautiful Dome with an impressive painting. This room is called Katholikon.

And yes I had to finish off my day with another Sunset over Jerusalem. Those are Jewish graves facing the Eastern Gate where the Messiah will return through.